The surprising reason birds sing - Partha P. Mitra

--

A brown thrasher knows a thousand songs. A wood thrush can sing two pitches at once. A mockingbird can match the sounds around it — including car alarms. These are just a few of the 4,000 species of songbirds. How do these birds learn songs? How do they know to mimic the songs of their own species? Are they born knowing how to sing? Partha P. Mitra illuminates the beautiful world of birdsong.

Lesson by Partha P. Mitra, animation by TED-Ed.

Support Our Non-Profit Mission
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------

Connect With Us
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------

Keep Learning
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------

Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Carolyn Corwin, rakesh Katragadda, Sergi Páez, Janelle, Jørgen Østerpart, Karla Brilman, Cindy O., Nicu Boanda, Roz AR, Reagen O'Connor, Anh Dau, Sabrina Gonzalez, Dino, FAWWAZ GHUWAIDI, Hadi Salahshour, Clement, Micholer Miller, Miroslav Dunaev, Sarah Burns, Nick Debenedictis, Abdullah Altuwaijri, Jessie McGuire, Divina Grace Dar Santos, Andrew Sleugh, Brian Richards, Farah Abdelwahab, Joe Meyers, Mikhail Shkirev, Raphaël LAURENT, Malcolm Callis, Sweetmilkcoco, David Matthew Ezroj, Ever Granada, fatima kried, Begum Tutuncu, Lala Arguelles, Mehmet Sencer KARADAYI, Christian Kurch, SungGyeong Bae, Patch Richy, Luis Felipe Ruiz Langenscheidt, Joe Huang, Rohan Gupta, Senjo Limbu, Martin Lau, Robson Martinho, Jason Garcia, Cailin Ramsey, Aaron Henson, Seung Hoon Shin, John Saveland, Nicolle Fieldsend-Roxborough, Venkat Venkatakrishnan, Sandy Nasser, CG Nobles, QIUJING L BU, Yoga Trapeze Wanderlust, and Jaron Blackburn.

[palemoonlight]

There's an amazing story about a flute player in 1930s that had a lyrebird pet that mimicked his music and when he later released it into the wild, it literally passed the sounds of the musician to the later lyrebird generations and they can even be heard today in the birds' songs! Birds are awesome creatures <3

[johnbagel]

Wow. This is actually really fascinating. Newfound respect for these artists.

[SciencewithKatie]

This is so cute, I love watching videos like this - it’s just so calming and you’re learning something new at the same time 🐣🐥

[Kyonkicchi]

My cats enjoyed this video too; they were looking all over for the birds!

[TheKinkish]

It resembles the way humans acquire language. Awesome

[Lcs-]

Please talk more about birds. They are amazing. We would like to know about how there are so many species.
Thank you for all your videos, I learn a lot with them

[stalebread]

Thanks Ted-Ed. Got me wishing spring was here so I can sit down outside and listen to the birds sing as I sip on some lemonade.

[dailydiaries]

birds' songs and animations are really incredible

[ilijamitrevski]

If a baby song bird hears the song of a bird from a different species will it imitate it? And if bread with other birds that grew up the same will they teach their babies the song? And after multiple generations will it still start to sound like the culture songs? And what if babies that picked up songs from two different species breed?

[cyzhouhk]

Now I can’t wait for summer so I can hear the songs of the birds all the time

[manojhsvjkumar]

0:02 wait, searching where are my earphones.

[madusanka]

I love TED-ED... I'm addicted to it. This is my morning energy.

[oona]

I'm literally in love with this channel. It helped me so much and whenever I'm in class, I'd be the only one giving out amazing new facts. Thank you so much!!

[oscarfernandoofpublicnature]

One of my favorites so far!! We do definitely have knowledge encoded in our genes, ask Chomsky!

[IdleDaydreamer]

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

[Future_Pheonix]

I love birds and the animation is beautiful and charming. : }

[kaitlynhorton]

Smiling and laughing. No matter where you are from out emotions are shown the same way through our faces

[Grdc]

Beautiful! It's so interesting. I love Ted ed videos

[lamcb.]

Wow, I might incorperate this knowledge in my next art project. I am starting to respect ornitology more and more

[aaronnash]

Alone this is stunning and further the implications immeasurable